Equipment progression

[Sean Setters]

This is quite off-topic, but I wanted to make a suggestion to George Slusher--sandbags are great, and I use them too. However, there's another great option -- metal tent stakes. I bought 6 of them at REI for not much money, and they work great on just about anything but concrete & pavement. In fact, in heavy winds, I use the sandbags and the tent stakes, and that combo has never failed me. The last time I was shooting in heavy winds, I was actually more afraid of my umbrella breaking rather than the lighstand coming down. Just a thought.

[George Slusher]

This is quite off-topic, but I wanted to make a suggestion to George Slusher--sandbags are great, and I use them too. However, there's another great option -- metal tent stakes. I bought 6 of them at REI for not much money, and they work great on just about anything but concrete & pavement. In fact, in heavy winds, I use the sandbags and the tent stakes, and that combo has never failed me. The last time I was shooting in heavy winds, I was actually more afraid of my umbrella breaking rather than the lighstand coming down. Just a thought.
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Good suggestion. I, too, bought tent stakes, line and line tighteners (more convenient and more secure than the knots I learned to do on the way to becoming an Eagle Scout) at my local REI (Eugene, Oregon) some time ago--for my tripod. I would put them between each pair of legs. (I also bought square furniture casters at a local home improvement store to put under the tripod feet on soft ground, which we have plenty of here during our rainy season (basically, 8 months of the year, October through May). They would work well with a lightstand, too: attach the lines at the first joint and put them between the legs.


In the particular situation I mentioned, though, the stands will be on asphalt. Wind is a potential problem, but not the most likely. (We seldom have summer thunderstorms in the Willamette Valley, though they do happen in the hills--"mountains" to Easterners--around us.) More likely is someone running into a stand. I'll keep them out of the way during the day, then move them into place in the evening. (Our "medallion" classes--somewhat like championships--are at the end of each day of the Fair.) Lines would make it worse, actually: something else for someone to trip over. That's one reason why I went for the cheap RF triggers, rather than using cables (e.g., PC-to-household male, then double-female extension cords, as suggested by folks at the Strobist site), which might be more reliable. (One good thing is that the setup will be very near our warmup area, so there's no shortage of dirt. I toyed with getting "real" sandbags, but figured that plastic trash bags (kitchen can size) would work as well.)